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Transcript of The Blumnefeld Education Letter November 1991
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The B lum enfeldEducation Letter
Vo l. 7 , N o. 1 1 (Le tte r ' 6 3 )
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." HOSEA 4:6
N ov em be r 1 99 1ED ITOR : S amu e l L . B lumenfe ld
The purpose of this newsletter 15 to provrde knowledge for parents and eauca'ors who want to save the children of America
from the destructive forces that endanger them Our children Inthe pubuc schools me at grave nsk In4 ways academically,
spiritually morally and phvsrcotlv ~ and only a well-tnformed publiC Wlil be able to reduce these flSks
,Without VISion the people perish
------ . -- - ----- --- ---
In S ea rch o f "~V ho le L an gu age " in A us tra lia
Australia is like a second America. Itsisland continent is the size of the United
States. It is a fascinating land of discovery,
colonization,settlement and immigrants. Its
heritage and language is English, like ours,
and for the most part we share the same
religion and read the same Bible. Although
for many years Australia limited its immi-
gration to people from the United Kingdom,
it has in recent years adopted a more open-
door policy. The result is the kind of ethnic
variety similar to that in the United States.So it is a country that Americans can
easily identify with and feel comfortable in.
But there are differences. InAustralia they
drive on the left side of the road as:in Eng-
land. This may seem like a trivial difference
until you decide to rent a car. Not too long
ago some Americans attending a Rotary
convention inBrisbane rented a car and were
killed ina head-on crash becausethey were
on the wrong side of the road.
I was invited to Australia by peoplewho had read my books and newsletters and
thought that I could help them in their
struggle against their own education system
which, as I discovered, is every bit as bad as
ours, Ittook two years for the arrangements
to be made. I left Boston on July 30, 1991 and
arrived inSydney on August 1st. You lose aday when you cross the dateline inthemiddle
of the Pacific. The nonstop flight on United
from Los Angeles to Sydney was supposed
to take 17hours but we had an unscheduled
fuel stop inFiji which stretched the flight to
19 hours.
At Sydney I went through immigration
and passport control. They had misspelled
my name on the visa-you need a visa to getinto Australia - so I was delayed as they
made their checks on their computers. Even-
tually I got through but by then I had missedmy 8:50 a.m. connection to Brisbane. I took
the bus to the domestic terminal of Austra-
IianAirlines, o n getting to the bus I had to
go outside where I got a taste of fresh Austra-
lian air. This was supposed to be winter, but
it was more like a mild spring day.
At Brisbane I was met at the airport by
Rona Joyner and her husband Harry, anactivist Christian couple intheir 70s. Rona,who had planned my tour of Australia, is the
founder and director of Stop and Care, a
conservative, Christian organization that has
been fighting pornography, abortion, sex
The Blumenfeld Education Letter is published monthly. Sources of products and services described are not necessarily endorsed
by thi.s ~ublication. !hey are intended to provide our readers with information on a rapidly expanding field of educational activity.
Permission toquote ISgranted provided proper credit isgiven. Original material iscopyrighted. by The Blumenfeld Education Letter .
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....----------- Education Letter, Pg. 2, November 1991 ---
education, secular humanism, etc. since the
1970s. "Stop" stands for "Society to OutlawPornography" and "Care" stands for
"Committee Against Regressive Education."
Rona isresponsible for gettingMACOS (Man:
A Course of Study) out of the public schoolsof Queensland. She also mobilized opposi-
tion to an education bill that would have
given the state complete control over private
education. Mother of eight children, Rona is
small and feisty, absolutely fearless when it
comes to facing the Fabian bureaucrats and
politicians who are trying to turn Australiainto a socialist state.
That first weekend in Australia was
devoted to a seminar on education whichRona had organized. It took place at a con-
ference center in a suburb of Brisbane, which
is the capital of Queensland. During thatweekend I had the pleasure of meeting Rev.
Fred Nile, a member of the parliament of
New South Wales in Sydney, who has been
defending Christian values and traditions
against the humanist, socialist enemy for the
last ten years. While Rona Joyner may be thePhyllis Schlafly of Queensland, Fred Nile is
easily the Jerry Falwell of Australia. He maynot have a television ministry, but he has a
highly visible parliamentary one, and as such
he represents a strong Christian presence in
an otherwise highly secularized state legis-lature.
Australia has six states and a territory
(New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland,
South Australia, Western Australia, Tasma-
nia, Northern Territory) plus an Australian
Capital Territory in which Canberra, the
federal capital, is located. About 16,000,000people live in a country the size of the United
States, minus Alaska. Soitdoesn't take very
manydedicatedactiviststoinfluenceacoun-
try with so small a population.Australia is currently ruled by a social-
ist federal government headed by Prime
Minister Bob Hawke, leader of the Austra-
lian Labor Party. His commitment to the
Fabian program was articulated in a speech
he gave at the Fabian Society's centenary
dinner in Melbourne in1984 after he hadbecome Prime Minister. He said:
J iWe all have to face the fact that if ourGovernment is to make really great and
worthwhile reforms - reforms that will
endure, reforms that will permanentlychange this nation - then it is not enough
simply to obtain a temporary majority at an
election, or even successive elections.
''For our reforms to endure, the whole
mood and mind and attitudes of the nation
must be permanently changed."
That is why the Fabians have placed somuch importance on their control of public
education. For, ifthe whole mood and mind
and attitudes of the nation must be perma-nently changed to achieve Fabian goals, then
it is the schools that must do the changing
and molding of the young minds.
Educa tio n fo r So c ia lism
In that same year, Mrs. Joan Kirner,
former Minister for Education, now Premierof Victoria, also a committed Fabian, wrote
in a Fabian Society pamphlet:"If we are egalitarian in our intention
we have to reshape education so that it is:
part of the socialist struggle for equality,
participation and sodal change, rather thanan instrument of the capitalist system; a vital
weapon in the transition to more equal out-
comes for disadvantaged groups and classesrather than a ladder to equal educational
opportunity for individuals; a catalyst forsystem change rather than the legitimization
of system maintenance."
After the seminar, Fred Nile and I were
driven up the coast of Queensland by Rona
and her staff of volunteers. On Sunday, Fred
and I spoke in Nambour and Gympie, on
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Education Letter, Pg. 3, November 1991 ---,,---------------
Monday at Maryborough, Bundaberg and
Gladstone. On Tuesday we drove up toRockhampton where we were interviewed
by the media, after which Rev. Nile was
driven to the airport where he took a plane
back to Sydney.That afternoon I had lunch with a local
group of liberal clergymen who meet once a
month for an ecumenical exchange. The
lunch had been arranged by a young Presby-
terian minister who had read my book, The
New l ll it era te s , and was anxious to converse
with me. He generally did not attend these
monthly meetings, but he thoughtI might be
able toenlighten the ministers tosomedegree
on the deficiencies of government educa-
tion. As it turned out, they did not share myenthusiasm for homeschooling.
Later he told me that he had given my
book to one of his church members who was
also a professor of education. He had askedthe professor to review the book which the
professor did. He gave me a copy of the
review which was very critical of my favor-
able views on intensive, systematic phonics.
The professor was a proponent of ~Nhole
Language and said that he held to the views
of Prof. Brian Camboume, an authority on
Whole Language.
Inthe United States we had been told
that Whole Language had originated in
Australia, and one of the things I had wanted
to do in Australia was find out whether ornot that was true. Ifit was, I wanted toknow
who was responsible for its original devel-
opment. The professor's mention of Brian
Cambourne provided the lead Iwas looking
for. Ispoke in Rockhampton that night to a
very appreciative audience and on the fol-
lowing morning flew further up the coast to
\ Townsville. There Iwas met by Pastor Hugh
Gallagher in whose Presbyterian church I
would b e speaking that evening. That after-
noon the Pastor gave me a tour of the city
which reminds one of both Florida and
Southern California. Townsville is also thehome of James Cook University which Iwas
able to visit the following morning. At the
library I asked if they had any information
on Prof. Brian Carnboume. Well, it turnedout that Brian Carnboume had gotten his
PhD at James Cook and that they actually
had a copy of his dissertation on hand. Did
I want to see it? I could hardly wait.
A K e y D is se rta tio n
The dissertation was entitled "A'Natu-
ralistic Study of Language Performance In
Grade 1Rural and Urban School Children."
The purpose of the study was to find out
where children best developed their Ian-
guageskills: in the home, on the playground,
or in the classroom. The results will surprise
many. Cambourne wrote:
"lO]f the three settings in which sponta-
neous speech was recorded, it would appear
that the home setting is the most nurturant
and the classroom setting is the least nur-
turant in terms of the development of the
skills of sentence-combining ....In
terms ofthe way inwhich Moffett (1968) conceptual-
izes the relationship between language and
thinking, the home environments sampled
in this study appear to be ones in which the
child is most constrained to 'specify' and
'relate,' which in turn helps 'move him to-
ward mature thought and speech.
". .. This suggests that a secure, warm,
parental-like relationship betweeninterlocu-tors is one of the factors which is conducive
to higher levels of performance."What an endorsement ofhomechooling!
But Cambourne wrote that in 1971 before
homeschooling had become the movement
itis today. What did Camboume conclude
from his findings? He wrote:
"One of the implications of this set of
relationships is the need for classrooms to be
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Education Letter, Pg. 4 , November 1991~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - ,
organised so as to maximise the opportuni-
ties to engage in productive conversation of
the sort which encourages the kinds of lan-
guage-use considered to be worth develop-
ing. Admittedly, itmay be difficult, within
the classroom setting, to provide, in idealform, the conditions conducive to the pro-
motion of dialogue experience fundamental
to language development."Inother words,let' smake the classroom
more like the home, and hopefully we'll get
the same results. The problem is that whenyou apply this theory of language develop-
ment to the teaching of reading, writing and
arithmetic at school it doesn't work at all.Ihad hoped to interview Prof. Cam-
bourne sometime during my stay in Austra-lia. He is Head of the Centre for Studies in
Literacy at Wollongong University, near
Sydney, but when Igot there he was out of
the country. Ihad wanted to ask him if he
was the father of Whole Language. How-ever, when Igot back to the States Igot hold
of Cambourne by phone and asked him the
question. He laughed and said that ifanyonecould be called the father of Whole Lan-guage, itwould probably be Don Holdawayof New Zealand, whose book ..The Founda-
tions o f L ite racy , is regarded as an important
source book byWhole Language proponents.
I then asked Cambourne what he thought of
the homeschool movement. He said he fa-
vored itifitwere done by parents who knew
what they were doing. However, he was
concerned that Christian fundamentalist
parents, with their narrow views, would
limit their children's educational horizons.
" W h o l e L a n g u a g e " N o t N e w
But he stressed that Whole Language
was really nothing new. "It's been around a
long, long time;" he said. Of course, Whole
Language is merely the latest adaptation of
whole-word, look-say reading instruction.
Ithas discarded the insipid basal readers in
favor of "realliterature." And the choice of
that "realliterature" is in the hands of the
teacher. Sometimes that "real literature" is
composed of stories that children find fright-
ening and emotionally upsetting. The resulthas been parent protestations all across
America.
Intrying to determine where WholeLanguage came from, it becomes obvious
that it was a joint enterprise among Ameri-cans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealan-ders and others in the reading instruction
field. What they all have in common is an
abhorrence of intensive, systematic phonics
as the principal means of teaching reading.
What they also have in common is a commit-ment to the principles of progressive educa-
tion as promulgated by John Dewey.From Townsville Iflew to Mt. Isa, a
mining town several hundred miles in the
Outback where the geography resemblesNevada. There Iwas met by Karl and Susan
Langguth in their beat-up station wagon.
The Langguths have nine children, all ofwhom are being homeschooled. Since theairport was in sight of the field where therodeo was to take place that weekend, we
stopped off to watch Australian cowboys
practice. It was like being back in the U.S.
The Langguths lived in a comfortable,airy house in a quiet residential area. Susan
had just given birth to a new daughter, only
three weeks old, and it was delightful to see
how each of the other children took turns
carrying their new little sister around, kiss-
ing and patting her.
The meeting that Thursday night washeld in the local education hall and about 35
people attended. I talked about the prob-lems of public education in America and
how the policy makers in Australia and the
U.S. think along the same lines. The purpose
of the message was to make parents aware of
what was going on and for them to realizeI!IILThe Blumenfeld Education Letter - Post Office Box 45161- Boise, Idaho 83711 _ __~
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EducationLeHer,Pg.5,November 199J:a----------
that there was a very good alternative:
homeschooling. Several homeschooling
parents were present.
There were two dissenters who strongly
defended the public system, but they were
countered by parents who told their horrorstories. One mother described the deteriora-
tion of the state schools by relating how
much better her older children were taught
compared to her younger ones who now
have dyslexia and Attention Deficit Disor-
der. She could see the changes by what was
happening to her own children.
Another mother told about her son being
taught death education and of a classroom
exercise in which a child was blindfolded
and told that she was barefoot and that therewere tacks all over the floor and that she had
to have total trust in her classmates in order
to be led safely out of the situation. lit was at
that point that the mother removed her child
from the school and is now homeschooling.
H om e scho olin g in th e O u tb ack
In the morning I watched Susan
Langguth get her school-age children startedon their home-study. They began with a
prayer, reading the catechism, reciting patri-
otic Australian poetry. Then, each got into
his or her own subjects, seated at a table by
the window. Susan went over their times
tables which they recited in unison. Itwas
touching to see one of the sons put his arm
around his mother's shoulder as she leaned
forward at the table reading with them. What
a lovely and loving family, and what happy
memories these children will have in lateryears.
Later that morning I flew back ItoBris-
bane where I then took a plane to Adellaide in
South Australia. I arrived at about 6:30 that
evening and was met by David Phillips,
South Australia director of Festival of light,
a Christian organization. He drove me
through Adelaide, pointing out sites of his-
torical interest. I was impressed with the
beauty of the city, its buildings and parks.
Adelaide is the capital of South Australia
and has a population of about a million.
We drove to his home inTea Tree Gully,a suburb inthe hills around Adelaide, and
were greeted by his wife Roslyn and their
three children. Roslyn and David had or-
ganized a full-day seminar for Saturday in
which Iwould instruct the attendees on how
to teach the 3Rs. The seminar, held at a
Christian school complex and attended
mainly by Christian-school teachers, was a
roaring success. I was amazed at how well-
organized everything was. That there was a
need for such a seminar was obvious fromthe questions that were asked and the num-
ber of books sold. There was a strong desire
to get back to an academic-centered curricu-
lum.
OnSunday I spoke at two churches and
on Monday visited a local public primary
school where a friend of Roslyn' s taught 2nd
grade. There were 28 children. Phonics and
arithmetic were taught incidentally while
the class was arranged in groups around
tables where the children worked alone or
with one another, with everyone doing
something else. The teacher was largely afacilitator. Socialization was the main object.
Some of the children were reading out
of their little story books. No basal readers
were being used, in conformity with Whole
Language philosophy. The children were
being taught to print first, then learn South
Australian Modern Cursive, consisting of
printed capital letters and printed small let-ters that lend themselves to being joined. It
was neither good cursive nor simple manu-
script. Itwas a wretched hybrid. This new
writing style was mandated by the state, and
the teacher could not teach standard cursive
even ifshe wanted to. Later I was to find out
that this new writing method was being
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...---__ -'-- Education Letter, Pg. 6 INovember 1991 ----
mandated in the other states as well but
under different names.
The classroom walls were covered with
every possible form of animal pictures and
cartoons. There were exhibits of the chil-
dren's "writing," allprinted. Oneyoungsterwas sprawled on the floor copying a story
out of one of the very large books used. on an
easel by the teacher. He was printing each
word laboriously. The atmosphere reminded
me more of a kindergarten than a 2nd grade
classroom.
K an ga ro os a nd E du ca to rs
On Tuesday, Roslyn took me to FlindersUniversity for a visit with Prof. Geoffrey
Partington, one of the leading conservative
academics in Australia who has written ex-
tensively and critically on the trends ofmodern progressive education. OnWednes-
day Roslyn took me to the Cleland Reserve
where I was able to feed the kangaroos,
observe koala bears, wombats, dingo dogs
and other native animals. Then, at 4 inthe
afternoon, we went to the Education Depart-
ment of South Australia for a meeting withthe people in charge of primary education
which Roslyn had arranged. I was con-
fronted with three very cordial ladies: theSuperintendent of Curriculum for early pri-
mary education; a reading specialist who
was also in charge of the Writing, ReadingAssessment Project, much like our NAEP;
and the principal of a junior primary school
and acting head of the Junior Primary SchoolsAssociation.
All three were totally committed to aWhole Language curriculum a la Frank
Smith, Don Holdaway, Ken Goodman, Brian
Cambourne ad nauseam. The reading spe-
cialist admitted that systematic phonics
taught children to read well, but they merely
became "word barkers," she complained,
with little comprehension. I tried to be as
reasonable as possible inmy arguments, but
it was a lost cause.
On Thursday morning I flew to Mel-
bourne, the capital of Victoria. That evening
Igave a five-hour seminar toChristian-school
teachers on the 3Rs in a suburban Christianschool. They asked lots of questions and
bought lots of books. The next morning I
was driven to the home of Babette and Char-
les Francis in Melbourne. Babette, a Catholic
Indian who married. an Australian, is one of
the leading Christian activists inMelbourne.
Her husband Charles is a Q.C. - Queen's
Counsel- and has defended homeschool-
ers before the Supreme Court of Victoria.
They have 8 children.
Later that morning Babette drove me to
the offices of the National Civic Council
where I spoke to staff members in their board
meeting room. The Council had been
founded in the 1950sby Bob Santamaria, one
ofAustralia's leading Catholic anti-commu-
nists. The Council puts out excellent publi-
cations dealing with all of the social and
moral issues confronting Australians.In the
evening I took part with several other speak-
ers in a large meeting in a church filled tocapacity. Itwas a very successful meeting.
On Sunday I spoke at a small church in the
suburbs, and on Monday evening spoke to avery good audience in the country town of
Shepparton, north of Melbourne. The next
day I went by bus to Canberra, Australia'sfederal capital, where I was met by Peter
Frogley who heads Light Educational Minis-
tries which distributes Christian books
throughout Australia.
B illio n ·D o lia r P a rliamen t
On the following day Peter took me on
a tour of this beautifully designed national
capital with its impressive buildings. We
visited. the National Library, the High Court
building, and the new billion-dollar Parlia-
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Educa tion . Le tte r, Pg . 1 , Novembe r 1991-------·-----,
ment building. The latter is very big and
modem, outfitted with beautiful marble,wood and brass; but spiritually sterile. On
theinsideitcouldhavebeenanairlinE~termi-
nal or convention center. On the outside it
could have been a large nondescript build-ing on a university campus. Its most distinc-
tive feature is the huge flagpole on top of the
building.
Peter and I were able to sit in the ob-
server's gallery in the House of Representa-
tiveschamberand watch Bob Hawke and hisopposition counterpart engage insome minor
verbal dueling during a question session.
The gallery was filled with youngsters learn-ing all about "democracy,"
That evening I spoke to a small audiencemade up mainly of young homeschooling
parents. A very receptive audience. The
next morning Rona Joyner met me at the bus
terminal, having flown in from Brisbane,
and we took the bus to Sydney. There we
were met by Margaret Ratcliffe, a very bright
Christian activist of about 6 0 who helped
plan the Sydney phase of my tour. She drove
us to a parking garage near Parliament House
where Fred Nile had arranged a press con-
ference for me. We walked in bright warmsunlight to Parliament House; got passes
and went up to Fred's office on the top floor
of a beautiful modem building with a sunlit
atrium.
When Fred and his wife Elaine were free
they joined us in the conference room where
we had sandwiches and. tea and waited for
the press to appear. Butwe were preempted
by the coup in Moscow and the press was too
busy with Gorby news to have time for us.Margaret then drove us on a tour of Sydney
harbor which is breathtakingly beautiful.
Eventually we wound up at her horne where
that evening a reception was held for me and
Rona.
On Friday morning I gave another
seminar on the 3Rs to about 30 parents and
teachers at a church in one of the suburbs. In
the evening I took part in the Festival ofLight's annual conference at St. Columb's
Anglican Church in West Ryde. Fred Nile
opened the evening, an American pastor by
the name of John Anderson followed, and Ispoke last. On Saturday morning Ispokefirst and was followed by Sam WalIer, Gen-
eral Manager for Curriculum of the Board of
Studies for New South Wales. He outlined
the state's education syllabus - the same
affective rot that has destroyed Americaneducation. He was followed by Dr. Fenton
Sharpe, Director General of Education, who
outlined their reading program; which fitted
a perfect description of Whole Language;
plus their program on values. It soundedexactly like what Americans were getting in
their public schools.
A rg uin g WH h E du ca to rs
On Monday we were back in Parlia-
ment House where Fred Nile had arranged a
luncheon for me. The invited guests in-
cluded some bureaucrats from the educa-
tion department with whom Iargued for thenext hour. Also present was Dr.SusanMoore,
an American who has lived in Australia for
25years. Herspecialtywaslearningdisabili-
ties and she defended my position on inten-sive phonics, Fred, as usual, was the perfect
host, a true servant of God who considered it
his duty to bring truth and enlightenment to
his colleagues.
There isn't enough room in this short
narrative to tell of all the people Imet and all
the things Idid in my week in the Sydneyarea. Suffice it to say that Ispent some days
at the home of Ian Hodge, Paradigm's dis-
tributor in Australia. Here too was a house
full ofbeautiful children beinghomeschooled
by devout, loving Christian parents. Cer-
tainly the birthrate of Christian homeschool-
ers in Australia augurs well for the future of
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ducation Letter, Pg, 8, November 1991
that country.
On Friday Iattended a luncheon at
Parliament House, arranged by Fred Nile, to
honor Dr. Dmitri Kouznetsov, the Russian
scientist who became a creationist. He ex-
plained how he first accepted creation beforehe accepted the Creator. Now he is an active
Baptist. Itwas an inspiring talk, after which
I was driven to the airport for a flight to
Coolangatta on Queensland's Gold Coast.
There Iwas met by Steve Gustavson, an
American who has lived inAustralia for 20
years, is married to an Australian, and prac~
tices law. That evening Ispoke at his church
and on the following morning gave a 5~hour
seminar on the3Rs at a church near Brisbane.On Sunday morning, which was Aus-
tralianFather'sDay,IspokeatSteve'schurch
on the importance of the father as the spiri-
tual head of the family. On Monday after-
noon Ispoke at a gathering of homeschool-
ers in a small town on the road to lismore
where Ialso spoke at a very well attended
meeting that evening. The next morning
Rona and Harry drove me back to Brisbane.
There was a little farewell gathering that
evening, and on the next morning, Septem-ber4th, Ideparted Australia. Myfiveweeks
had been very well spent, and Iwas sad to
leave a country where Ihad been so warmly
and hospitably treated and where my lec-
tures had been so greatly appreciated.
L e t t e r t o t h e E d i t o r
Dear Mr. Blumenfeld,
Thank you for Alpha-Phonics!
We have a 14-year-old son who has
Downs Syndrome. He began his formal
"education" at age of three. After 10years of
special education inthe public school sys-
tem, he had areading vocabulary of 76words.
His teachers used a sight-word recognition
system and considered that a "good score".
He was very frustrated with his inability to
read, so he would copy his siblings by pre-
tending to read.
Ibegan to search for a reading program.Inreading through the home-school booksection at the library, Ifound a recommenda-
tion for the book How to Tutor. After read-
ing that book, Istarted our son on the phon-
icsprogram immediately. Within one month,
he could read over 100words--more than he
had learned in 10 years of schooIingf!! I was
thrilled and so was he.
We spent about a half hour a day after
school, and he continued his progress slowly,
but surely. Many of the words were unfamil-
iar to him, such as "rap" and "jab", so I
explained the meanings and his vocabulary
expanded. We have seen a remarkable change
in his articulation. When he learned the "th"
sound and saw that "bath" ended with "th",
he stopped saying "baf". His speech is much
clearer and his sentences are more complete.
It has been a year since we started the
Alpha-Phonics program and he is finishing
the last pages. He is so pleased to be able toread library books, sing along with the hymns
at church, and inform the driver what the
signs along the road say. Our son does nothave a very high I.Q., but he was able to learn
to read using phonics. Iam sure there are
many children inspecial education programs
that could also learn using this system, and Iwould highly recommend it to other par-
ents.
Thank you for Alpha-Phonics!
Sincerely,
Jeanette Metzger
Goshen, IndianaOctober 2, 1991
e Blumenfeld Education Letter - Post Office Box 45161- Boise, Idaho 83711